Rachel cast a longing look at the bed. How she wanted to drop onto the thin, rose-colored counterpane and rest. She had hardly slept on the cramped ship and weariness ached in her bones. But dinner was only thirty minutes away, and she needed to wash up and brush the stains from her gown. The staff’s attitude would not improve if she continued to look like she had been sleeping in a gutter somewhere.
After carefully hanging her straw bonnet on a wall hook and putting her meager things in the chest, she changed into her green-trimmed dress and washed as well as she could. She found the back stairs and started down them. Voices ricocheted up the narrow stairwell and reached her ears. Rachel slowed her steps. They were talking about her.
“You should’ve seen the master’s face when he came back with her. He wasn’t happy to have had to go fetch her. I could see his blood was up across the room!” Unmistakably Molly’s voice.
“Naw! Say yer foolin’.” The voice of another girl. Peg, perhaps. She followed her declaration by a whinnying giggle.
“I say, what do you expect from some Irish girl? They’re all the same,” Molly declared. “Can’t even figure out how to properly arrive at their place of employment.”
“Molly, cease your tongue.” An older-sounding woman this time, with a deep and commanding voice. “Miss Dunne is not some ‘Irish girl.’ From what I’ve heard, her father was a respectable shop owner and her mother is as English as you or I. And her cousins are the Harwoods.”
“Her mother might be English, but her hair’s as red as any Irishman’s!”
“As though that proves something. I’ve had quite enough of this talk. It is most unchristian of you, and poor Miss Dunne is your better.”
“My better?” Molly scoffed. Rachel’s heart plummeted. They would be enemies for certain. “She doesn’t know her place, I say, Mrs. Mainprice. Didn’t even curtsy to Mrs. Woodbridge, like would be proper. And she and Miss Harwood lied about her age. Joe was told he’d be meeting an old spinster lady, not someone barely my age! Even the master didn’t know” Molly paused. Maybe she leaned forward. Maybe she shook her finger to emphasize her point. “Why did they lie, I ask you? Trying to pretend she’s something she’s not, is what I think.”
Rachel’s pulse raced while she tried to convince her arm to push open the kitchen door so she could deny that she and Claire had lied about anything.
“I think she’s hiding something,” Molly continued. “And I think Dr. Edmunds believes so too. I wouldn’t be surprised if the master dismisses her at once. Cheeky bit.”
“He’ll do no such thing,” stated Mrs. Mainprice. “We should welcome Miss Dunne and pray for her while she’s with us, is what we should be doing. Not gossiping.” A bowl or pot thudded onto a hard wood surface. “She’ll be down here soon, and I expect you both to be respectful and nice. Dr. Edmunds deserves a peaceful household, not a gaggle of staff members who fight with each other. For shame.”
“He shouldn’t have brought her, is all I’m saying.” Molly wasn’t finished arguing. “We could’ve helped him properly without anyone else’s help. Even with Miss Guimond gone, we could’ve taken care of everything ourselves.”
“Aye. I’m with Molly, Mrs. Mainprice,” said the girl with the piercing giggle. “For all we know, she’s like all the other Irish and’ll rob the ’ouse while we sleep.”
“Quiet, Peg. Don’t be silly.”
“Or worse. Mebbe she’ll kill us!”
Stillness followed Peg’s proclamation, while dread crept numbly along Rachel’s arms.
She could run back to her room and hide—and hence, starve—or stride into the kitchen to face them. Inconveniently, her stomach rumbled. She had huddled on the stair long enough.
Rachel pushed through the half-open kitchen door and stepped into the lions’ lair.
CHAPTER 5
Don’ think it’s the best news, sir,” said Joe, standing in the doorway of James’s office.
The tension in James’s neck, which had pinched like a vise since Sophia’s visit earlier that day, had no apparent chance of easing. He kneaded the knot with his fingertips. “No help from Dr. Harris, then?”
“Dunno for certain, sir. Can’t right read,” he answered with only the faintest hint of apology for his lack of education and handed over the message.
“I keep forgetting, Joe.”
“S’all right, sir. No need for me to read an’ all, I s’pose.”
James opened the note and held it up to the light of the desk lamp. Not good